Peppers

IPM Threshold Guide for Vegetable Crops

Insect Pest Management in Peppers

Because of the bright sunny days we have had in the past 3-4 weeks as well as higher temperatures lately vegetables in high tunnels (HT) are highly susceptible to thrips and two spotted spider mite infestations because of the hot dry conditions.

There has been a large and rapid increase in brown marmorated stink bug BMSB) in some pepper fields in the past week in central Maryland. Numbers just two weeks ago in these areas were very low with just a few nymphs observed. We know that BMSB populations tend to increase in August and through the fall into the first frost, but this was such a rapid increase that a great deal of damage was done to bell and banana peppers.

The Brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) Halyomorpha halys (Figs. 1 and 1a) was accidentally introduced into the United States in shipping containers arriving from Asia. The first confirmed specimen was collected in Allentown, PA in October 2001, although there is evidence that it was collected from black light traps in New Jersey as early as 2000.

As this growing season winds down and for the next few weeks it is a good time to examine vegetable roots for root knot nematode (RKN). I would be suspicious of having RKN if my vegetables seemed to need more water than normal or wilted during the heat of the day and recovered later or plants had nutrient deficiency symptoms rarely seen in your fields and the addition of fertilizers did not seem to alleviate the deficiency symptoms.

Southern Blight Problem in Peppers

Tough season for blossom end rot for pepper and tomatoes.

This heat wave we have had this past week will have repercussions over the next few weeks as the flowers of several crops including cucurbits, peppers and especially tomato will not pollinate or fertilize properly to develop into fruit. Daytime highs of 90o F and above and nighttime lows only getting down to 70o F in much of the midAtlantic for the last week will cause blossom drop and fruit abortion in tomatoes.

I know this seems very obvious to most growers as we have sunscald every year in our vegetable plantings. This year just seems to be especially bad as I have gotten several calls from growers about a strange problem in their peppers that looks like sunscald, but couldn’t be. The reason given that it could not be sunscald is because the plants have thick foliage and the fruit seem well covered.